Wastewater responsibility

The Council owns and is responsible for maintaining all sewer mains. The customer owns and is responsible for all blockages of the private sewer lateral to the point of discharge at the sewer main.

The drawing below shows a simplistic view of ownership for a single point of connection. In reality there are many different types of connection to sewer mains; these are covered extensively in the Wastewater Bylaw (pdf, 338 KB).

The customer is responsible for clearing any blockages resulting from non-structural faults on their sewer lateral and any faults within the boundary of their property. Council is responsible and will repair any structural faults of the sewer lateral in the carriageway.

If you experience a blockage in your sewer lateral, you should call a local drainlayer or plumber to carry out an investigation to try and resolve this. If the blockage is due to a fault in the sewer main or a structural fault in the sewer lateral within road reserve, then the Council should be contacted. If you have incurred costs from the private drainlayer due to a fault in Council-owned pipes, then you should contact the wastewater department at the Council to arrange reimbursement on 03 311 8900.